The
requirements for waging total war have compelled me to postpone the
commemoration from November 9 to the next available Sunday. Likewise,
work at the headquarters does not allow me to leave it even for a few
days at this time. Besides, I regard it less as my task today to give
speeches than to prepare and implement those measures that are necessary
to force our way through this fight. After all, as in the time of crisis
in the year 1923, I am today moved by only one dominating thought: now
really to risk everything for the necessary success! And just as the
dead comrades were rightly told ten years later that the victory was
theirs in the end, so the victory must and will belong in the end to the
fighting front and the no less heroically fighting homeland in the great
struggle of to be or not to be.

In the past, I repeatedly
pointed out that it is necessary for a nation to appreciate and honor
its great men. Especially in grave times, a despairing nation can gather
courage and strength for the present from its behavior in the past. How
much more does this apply to a nation that behaves as boundlessly
bravely as the German one! It will be able to learn the only correct
lesson for the present from the struggle of its great men, namely, that
Providence in the end helps only him who does not despair and takes up
the struggle against the adversities of the time and, therefore, in the
end decides his own destiny.

Insofar as the Almighty opened
our eyes in order to grant us insight into the laws of His rule, in
accordance with the limited capabilities of us human beings, we
recognize the incorruptible justice which gives life as a final reward
only to those who are willing and ready to give a life for a life.
Whether man agrees to or rejects this harsh law makes absolutely no
difference. Man cannot change it; whoever tries to withdraw from this
struggle for life does not erase the law but only the basis of his own
existence.

As the National Socialist
movement began its struggle to win over the German human beings, every
insightful person realized the impending internal collapse of the Volk
and nation. The inevitable consequence of this was an increasing threat
to our national existence, a slow decline in our birthrates, together
with a slow national death many times the number of the dead of the
World War. After all, this corresponded to the objective of our enemies.
By economic strangulation of the Reich, they intended to destroy the
basis for the material existence of the German nation. Thereby, they
hoped to realize Clemenceau’s demand for the reduction of the German
Volk by twenty million people.The struggle of the
years 1914 through 1918 cost two million people their lives, but there
were twenty million that had to be taken out of our Volk according to
the wishes of the democratic benefactors of mankind. Today, this demand
has gone up to forty million. However, since it is not up to people
themselves to stop backward movements in the life of a nation whenever
there is a need for it, nobody could say when this process of shrinking
the substance of our Volk would come to an end. In the same matter,
another natural realization forces itself on us: the world does not know
any empty spaces! Nations which are numerically or biologically too weak
and no longer able satisfactorily to fill their Lebensraum will in the
most favorable scenario be put on a reservation that corresponds to
their value and size. Other life will flow into the now empty spaces. In
accordance with Providence’s law, other nations-and, regrettably, often
primitive races-will then take up the fight for existence in an area
that an aging nation has lost due to cowardice and weakness, that is,
unfitness for life. So, in the year 1919, we faced the realization that
only a reform of our Volk from head to foot would in the long run enable
it to resume successfully this struggle for existence. Only a complete
turning away from the phraseology of the democratic corruption of
nations and the Bolshevik destruction of nations could return to our
Volk its natural vitality and thus secure the conditions for a
successful defense of life in the future.

According to this realization,
the National Socialist movement entered the fight. Confronted with these
great objectives, the proletarian as well as the bourgeois state of
classes had to pale in insignificance. What still appears as the ideal
to the existing classes had, in the eyes of the young movement, already
proven to be insanity, a deadly poison for our Volk. The intention to
erect, for the first time in our history, a Volksstaat encompassing all
Germans could be realized only by the mobilization of the entire
strength of the nation. By so doing, the synthesis between nationalist
and socialist ideas was best able to produce that strength necessary as
a prerequisite for such a fight. The proclamation of the young
nationalist and socialist Volksstaat immediately elicited the hatred of
all those opponents at home and abroad who had represented the earlier
system of Germany’s fragmentation and impotence: the parties, small
parties, groups, ranks, professions, organizations, classes, and finally
creeds as the main beneficiaries of the inner-German divisions, and
abroad, the democratic-Marxist world hostile to us as the main party
interested in Germany’s impotence. The hatred of this conspiracy of our
enemies at home and abroad has since then loyally followed the movement
throughout the years of fighting, before and after the seizure of power.
It has persecuted us with the refinement and brutality of which that
system was capable at the time. Since the march on the Feldherrnhalle,
thousands of murdered National Socialistsand tens of thousands
of wounded have become the victims of this only true aggression.

Since the day of the seizure of
power, the old enemies all the more refused to change. Instead, their
hatred increased. At the most, they adapted their methods to the new
situation. As the ultimate inspiring and driving force, Jewry has not
allowed any opportunity to pass since the year 1933, as at the time of
the struggle for power, in order to express its satanic will to
persecute and destroy this new concept of a state as such and its young
state. It regarded them as the first dawn of a general realization of
its destructive work against the nations and as an eminent danger.
Perhaps times have changed, but the essence of the fight forced on us
has remained the same. What has remained is, first, our own objective:
the preservation of our Volk and the securing of its future by all
means; and, second, the objective of our enemies: the annihilation of
our Volk, its extermination, and the ending of its existence.

That this was not nor is it now
a slogan of National Socialist propaganda was proved by the fact of
Germany’s decline at home and, today, is proved by the proclamations of
our enemies. No National Socialist propaganda minister could put the
objectives of our enemies more plainly than the Jewish press has done
for decades and does so in particular today. Beyond this, the enemy
statesmen above all do this publicly through their ministers. The
objective of our enemies has likewise remained the same. Promoted by the
democracies, Bolshevism at one time tried to destroy our movement by
terror at home.

Supported by the democracies,
the Soviet Union strives to destroy the Reich and exterminate our Volk.
That the bourgeois world, which at the time consciously or unconsciously
acted as the accomplice of Bolshevism at home, was struck with blindness
by God and headed for its own downfall does not change its behavior. The
fact that today’s democracies would be dead with the victory of
Bolshevism, which would smash the democratic states with all their ideas
against a wall, does not change the reality of their present procedure.
You can explain the incomprehensible absurdity of their actions at the
moment you realize that the Jew is always behind the stupidity and
weakness of man, his lack of character on the one hand, and his
deficiencies on the other. The Jew is the wire-puller in the
democracies, as well as the creator and driving force of the Bolshevik
international beast of the world (Weltbestie).

Even before National Socialism,
many at home already had an idea of this danger. However, an effective
fight against it only began after this anemic insight became a
confession of flesh and blood, which found an organization of combat
strength in the National Socialist Party. An understanding of the
necessity of rescuing Europe from the Bolshevik monster today also
exists on the part of numerous foreign statesmen, parliamentarians,
party politicians, and economists. This understanding will only lead to
a practical result if a strong European power manages [to succeed],
beyond these theoretical hopes, in successfully organizing and fighting
through this common struggle of life and death of all. Only the National
Socialist German Reich can and will do this.

Almost always, Europe consisted
of a multitude of competing nations and states. In spite of this, Europe
most of the time meant just one state or a community of related nations.
There was certainly a great advantage in the eternal conflict among the
European nations. Like any competition, it challenged the fitness and
striking power of the individual nations. However, in times of fateful
struggle of life and death for all, there was the great danger of a
dissipation of the forces of this continent confronted with the
impending attack of the Central Asian east, this eternally latent danger
to Europe. In long periods of European history, the thesis of the
European balance of power was all too often regarded by the obtuse west
as a licence for allying itself with the impending danger, contrary to
the commandment of European solidarity, in order more easily to strangle
one unpleasant competitor or another. For centuries, the old Reich was
forced to wage its fight against Mongols and Turks alone, or with a few
allies, in order to spare Europe a fate whose consequences would have
been as unthinkable as realizing a Bolshevization would be today.

Even though this struggle in the
past centuries was accompanied by many setbacks and demanded the
greatest sacrifices of our Volk, it led to success in the end. It alone
made possible the development and existence, as well as the prosperity,
of the European family of nations. Besides, in confrontations of
world-historical impact, it is not likely that the outcome of the fight
should be decided in months or years, but rather over long periods, with
perseverance. In these periods, divine Providence has men line up to try
them for what they are worth. It thereby decides whether they deserve
life or death. That our National Socialist state will today pass this
historic trial is already guaranteed by the stand of our movement up to
now. Which bourgeois party would have been able to survive the collapse
of November 9, 1923? Which party would have been capable, following such
a complete collapse, of reaching a total victory by an unprecedentedly
hard fight? Even though this fight may today appear to the superficial
observer to have been minimal compared with the present events, this
only reveals his failure to understand decisive values. After all, the
struggle for the movement at the time was just as much a fight for
Germany as the fight of the present Reich is today. It was a fight for
our Volk and its future, which had first to be decided at home before it
could face our foreign enemies’ will to exterminate us. How hopeless the
fight of the party appeared to our adversaries was revealed by their
statements that, following November 9, 1923, National Socialism could be
regarded as dead and, herewith, the danger for the enemies of our Volk
as eliminated. In spite of this, only a few years later, this party,
which was thought to have been eliminated at the time, stood in the
midst of the decisive struggle for power. For nearly a decade, it waged
this fight by the reckless deployment of numerous men and women,
suffered only passing setbacks, and brought it to a victorious
conclusion in the end. During this time, the movement developed its
mental attitude. It has proved that it is today capable of leading the
nation and having the Reich lead Europe. And just as we witnessed at the
time that the whole world of the bourgeois democratic party, corrupted
by its compromises and cowardly renunciations, slowly began to fall
apart on its own, and then finally to die, we today observe the same
drama on a large scale.

Nations and, above all, their
statesmen, generals, and soldiers always find it easy to tolerate days
of happiness and visible successes. What is remarkable about the great
men of world history, as well as nations destined for great things, is
their steadfastness in days of trouble, their confidence at times when
their situation appears hopeless, their defiance and courage when they
suffer setbacks. As National Socialists, we were always happy about the
short or long periods of prosecution in our fight, because they rid the
party of all that light ballast: fellow travelers who surely would have
boasted the loudest on the day of victory. Likewise, in this mightiest
struggle of nations of all time, we see those elements desert us that
are cowardly and unfit for life. That monarchs lose their courage, in
complete ignorance of their position, which today can only be regarded
as prehistoric, and that they thereby become traitors is the result of
their mental and moral incapacity produced by centuries of inbreeding.
At such times, nations need leaders different from these dynasties that
have become ill and morbid. That even so-called statesmen and generals
are deluded by the view that such a confrontation of life and death, and
its impact on world history, can be decided in their favor by cowardly
capitulation likewise only proves the experience of the ages that not
too many great men live at the same time. Wherever such a capitulation
took place, or was considered, or may be considered today, the result
will not be a cheap slipping away from this crisis with its impact on
world history, but the inevitable and certain extermination of the
nations in question and the annihilation of its leading men.

After all, a first consequence
of this will be Bolshevik chaos and civil war in the interior of these
states. Second, there will be an extradition of the socalled war
criminals, in other words, first the most valuable men, then endless
columns of men who will set out for the Siberian tundra to fade away,
all a result of the weakness of the leaders of their states. Even though
from the beginning the consequences of these betrayals have, from a
military point of view, been very grave for Germany as the bearer of the
main burden in this war, they have not succeeded, neither in unbending
the structure of the Reich nor in eliminating its spirit of resistance.
On the contrary, the nation hardened in its willingness to fight and
became all the more fanatical.

We are happy that in a number of
the nations which have shown signs of decay a number of elements of
resistance could be found: in Italy, they gather around the creator of
the new state, the Duce Benito Mussolini; in Hungary, around Szalasi; in
Slovakia, around the leadership of state president Tiso; in Croatia,
around the Poglavnik Ante Pavelich. All these men are the leaders of
young nations.

We know that committees and
governments were likewise formed by other nations that have decided not
to recognize the capitulation and not to accept the extermination of
nations simply because a few spineless weaklings failed their honor and
sense of duty, or because some blockheads allowed themselves to be
deluded by opportunities in which they themselves no longer believe
today. From the first day, our greatest ally, Japan, recognized this
fight for what it is: a decisive confrontation of life and death. From
this day on, it waged it with the bravery of a true nation of heroes.

My party comrades!
Volksgenossen! Since the breakthrough of the Russians at the Romanian
Don front in November 1942, since the ensuing complete disintegration of
the Italian and Hungarian units with all its terrible consequences for
our waging of the war, betrayal after betrayal hit our Volk hard. In
spite of this, the hopes of our enemies were not realized. Again and
again, we managed to cushion our fronts and halt the enemies. Only one
hope remained for them: the stab in the back. As always when they are
otherwise unable to succeed against Germany, they try to bring about a
decision by stabbing us in the back from the inside. Spineless
creatures, a mixture of feudal arrogance, bourgeois deficiency, and
former parliamentary corruption came together-in the hope that they
would immediately receive a reward for this act of perjury
(Meineidstat)-in order to cut the German resistance off at its root.

They were right in one respect:
as long as I live, Germany will not submit to the fate of the European
states swept away by Bolshevism; as long as I have not breathed my last
breath, my body and soul will serve only one goal: to make my Volk
strong in the defense, for the attack on the deadly danger threatening
it.

While wars used to be fought out
of dynastic or economic interests, the war we are fighting today is a
fight for the preservation of our Volk itself.

Therefore, all the sacrifices in
this war will lead, as a logical consequence, to the strengthening of
the German Volksstaat. If some outdated individuals are offended by
this, I cannot help them. The Volksstaat will pass over them and resume
its agenda. If individual subjects of outdated parties, classes, or
other splinters in our Volk think that the time has come for their
resurrection, they will face their total extermination at exactly this
moment. The day after the seizure of power, National Socialism, which
was the victim of bloody persecution before, treated its political
opponents not only in a conciliatory manner, but generously. Countless
men who once persecuted me received pensions from me in this state, or
were appointed to new and higher offices: the justice minister of a land
where I spent thirteen months locked up in a fortress was nonetheless
appointed German Reich minister of justice by me.Prussian ministers
and Reich ministers who earlier were our cruelest persecutors received
from me high pensions of charity although I was not obliged to do so.

I felt that it was beneath me to
subject Social Democrats to hardship, just because they had opposed me
as ministers. Judges who had sentenced us were not hindered in their
careers because of this and often were even promoted.

Only those who threw down the
gauntlet to the new state in word and deed were treated by it according
to the law. Through the manner in which I took over power, I have
moreover made it easy for every German, especially every state official
and officer, to do his duty without throwing them into an inner
conflict. For over a year and a half, the departed Reich president was
my superior and was accordingly treated by me with admiration and great
respect.

Whoever now believes that he can
throw others into inner conflicts, without ever having been forced into
one by me, should know that this means his end is dead certain. As long
as these people only persecuted me, I was able to magnanimously ignore
and forget about this persecution.Today, however,
whoever raises the sword or bomb against Germany will be ruthlessly and
mercilessly annihilated. A few hours sufficed in order to suffocate the
attempted putsch of July 20. It took only a few months to round up and
completely eliminate this coterie of dishonorable Catilinariancharacters.

Just as I took the occasion to
cleanse the movement in the year 1934, after the revolt of a small group
within,this new revolt
likewise started a thorough overhaul of the entire state apparatus. The
time for compromises and reservations is over for good. These days the
Reich war flag becomes the regimental flag of the German Wehrmacht, as a
symbol of the National Socialist idea of revolution and state. The
German salute is now in use in the Wehrmacht. The Volk grenadier
division and the German youth will help the National Socialist world of
thought achieve a completely victorious breakthrough. What most
profoundly moved and rejoiced me after the events of July 20 was the
realization that the army, the navy, and the Luftwaffe as a whole-the
Waffen SS need not be considered here-had already adopted the National
Socialist spirit, even though this was regrettably not outwardly visible
before, so that hardly anything remained to be done other than to expel
the unworthy from party, state, and Wehrmacht in order to bring about a
complete agreement of opinions and will in party, Volk, state, and
Wehrmacht.

In spite of this, the
consequences of this day were bitter. In a fit of hope, our enemies
gathered their entire strength, filled with the belief that shortly they
would be able to overrun Germany. That they have not succeeded in this,
I owe to the brave behavior of the Wehrmacht and, above all, the brave
behavior of the German homeland, which is most worthy of praise. The
response to the appeal for the expansion of the Reich’s defense and the
Volkssturm was only a symbol of the increasingly evidenced German
Volksgemeinschaft in this fateful struggle for the future of the nation.
Thus, next to the old grenadiers of the army, the soldiers of the navy
and Luftwaffe, the soldiers of the homeland step up in complete equality
of rank; not only its men, old men, and boys, but also its women and
girls. As I consider the total sum of all the unspeakable sacrifices
that our Volk makes today, all the suffering that the millions in our
cities must bear, the sweat of our men and women laborers, and our
people in the countryside, I would like to ask the criminals of July 20
only one question: with what right can you demand these sacrifices if
you do not have the sacred resolve, before your conscience, to
strengthen the Volksstaat at the end of this fight, develop it ever the
more, so that this greatest epoch of our Volk culminates in the birth of
a Reich that not only encompasses all Germans at the outside but also
makes them happy at home? By fighting for the National Socialist German
Volksstaat, I give the only possible moral and ethical meaning to this
greatest struggle in our history.

Whoever thinks of the interests
only of his class at such an hour, acts not only as a criminal but also
as an insane egotist. He must be insane because it takes incredible
narrow-mindedness to imagine that you can rally a nation for a fight of
life and death for over half a decade on behalf of a medieval feudal
state.

My party comrades! As the year
1923 ended I wrote Mein Kampf in prison.

I incessantly had in mind the
realization of the National Socialist Volksstaat.

For years after the seizure of
power, we fought for this idea and worked for it.

Rage and envy filled our enemies
in view of the accomplishments in all areas of our economic and social
life, the increasing culture and satisfaction of our classes. If
so-called social plans for the future are today published in other
countries, then this is only a pale imitation of what National Socialist
Germany has already achieved. So today I can only again pledge the
continuation of this work. As an old National Socialist, I will not
waver in this fight for one second in the fulfillment of the duties
incumbent upon me. I did not choose this duty.

Providence imposes it on every
German: to do everything and not to neglect anything that can secure the
future of our Volk and make its existence possible.

We will respond to the most
severe blows of fortune with a defiant fury, incessantly filled with the
conviction that Providence often loves only those whom it chastises; and
that it tries human beings and must try them in order to arrive at a
just appraisal of their value. I have the unshakable will to set
posterity a no less praiseworthy example in this fight than the great
Germans did ages ago.

My own life does not play a role
in this, which means that I will not spare my health or my life in any
manner in the fulfillment of this duty conferred to me as the first
German. If, at this time, I speak little and not very often to you, my
party comrades and the German Volk, then I do this because I work; I
work to fulfill the tasks with which time has burdened me and which must
be fulfilled in order to bring about a turn of events. After all, since
I have this will and see the loyal following of the German Volk, I do
not doubt for a minute that, in the end, we will successfully survive
this time of trial and that the hour will come when the Almighty again
grants us His blessings as before. At the time, we gained the greatest
victories in world history but did not become arrogant. At a time of
setbacks, we will never bend and will thereby reaffirm in a positive
sense the portrayal of the character of the present German Volk for
posterity. I therefore believe with imperturbable confidence that,
through our work and sacrifice, the moment will one day come when our
efforts will finally be crowned by success. The goal of our struggle is
no different from what we fought for in the year 1923, and for which the
first sixteen martyrs of our movement died: our Volk’s rescue from
misery and danger, the securing of life for our children, grandchildren,
and distant generations! In the shadow of our nation, a Europe marches
which feels that not only Germany’s fate is being decided today but also
the future of all nations that count themselves part of Europe and are
consciously disgusted by Bolshevik barbarism. So I greet you from afar,
my old party comrades, through the person who will speak this confession
of my faith, in dogged determination, with my old unbending fighting
morale and my unshakable confidence. On this occasion, I again thank the
fighters of twenty-five years ago, who also have set us an example for
the future of our Volk and the Greater German Reich!